Recently, thousands of people participated in the forty-seventh
anniversary of the historic 1965 marches from Selma to Montgomery. Now,
as in 1965, voting rights were front and center: marchers protested
against the recent passage of restrictive voting laws in many states,
arguing that such provisions disproportionately disenfranchise voters of
color. This was familiar ground for civil rights organizers in the
South. This year, however, there was a new theme: immigrant rights.
Those marching joined in opposition to Alabama’s H.B. 56, which targets undocumented immigrants in the state. The tone, as recounted by Trymaine Lee for the Huffington Post,
was one of solidarity: marchers commented on the shared struggle and
shared aims of those of African, Asian and Latin American descent, of
citizens and non-citizens.

Alabama is in a new phase of its own civil rights history, but this
multiracial rights frontier itself is not new. The deep South now
grapples with issues of inter-group coalition building that were at the
forefront in California more than a half-century ago. In his impressive
new book, The Color of America Has Changed: How Racial Diversity Shaped Civil Rights Reform in California, 1941-1978, Mark Brilliant
demonstrates that California experienced the challenges and rewards of
“multiracial civil rights making” starting in the 1940s. (p. 12.)